THE NEVER-ENDING $B WGTL SCANDAL

THE latest turn in the NiQuan-WGTL scandal would not have taken place if the authorities had listened to good advice and not constructed the ill-fated plant.

Instead, Malcolm Jones, as Executive Chairman of then-Petrotrin, ventured into the doomed project – against solid advice from several professionals – and lost $3.3 billion of taxpayers’ money.

That did not stop Jones, an energy czar of successive PNM governments, from receiving an honorary doctorate by the University of Trinidad and Tobago and serving on the PNM Government’s Energy Standing Committee.

The Kamla Persad-Bissessar Administration had brought legal action against Jones after accusing him of misconduct.

The Government of Dr. Keith Rowley withdrew the litigation and taxpayers paid Jones’ million-dollar legal fees.

In addition, Jones oversaw cost overruns on several Petrotrin projects, such as the ultra-low sulphur diesel plant and the gasoline optimisation programme.

But the World Gas-To-Liquids stench was the biggest fiasco in Jones’ wretched portfolio.

Court documents showed that he and the then-Board of Directors were counselled against venturing in the WGTL project for several critical technical and financial reasons.

There was detailed advice to Jones, including the fact that the business partner was unreliable and financially weak.

Jones and his fellow directors ignored the advice, and the project collapsed like a pack of cards, leaving taxpayers with a $3.3 billion hole.

The Rowley Administration sold the incomplete plant to NiQuan, in what the Express newspaper editorialised was “a highly opaque deal.’

The newspaper voiced a popular view: “Given the potentially explosive situation at debt-ridden Petrotrin and the billion-dollar disaster at WGTL, it is mystifying why the Government would not be anxious to ensure full transparency about the WGTL-NiQuan deal.”

The Express warned that the Government was “throwing good money after bad projects.”

Then-Energy Minister Franklyn Khan gave a half-baked statement in Parliament that, according to the newspaper, was “very thin on details.”

There was a lack of transparency in the NiQuan agreement, similar to the secrecy with respect to the decision to withdraw the litigation against Jones. 

And in each case, the Rowley Government was dealing with large sums of public funds!

It turned out that NiQuan paid a mere US $10 million, with US $25 million to be disbursed in preference shares at a future date.

In addition, the company owes taxpayers $127 million for gas supplies.

But Rowley had warped expectations of the NiQuan deal.

He had anticipated that the company would shell out $2 billion in taxes and statutory payments over the project’s lifetime, employ 65 skilled workers, and buy up to 31 mmscf of natural gas a day.

He saw the plant as “a prime example of the successful development of the country’s export potential…”

Now, it has been revealed – as many people had cautioned – that NiQuan is in deep financial trouble, with the people of T&T once again left holding the dirty end of the stick.

The revised WGTL has suffered a fate similar to that under Jones.

A principal NiQuan operative is Ainsley Gill, who was retained by the Patrick Manning administration as a Washington lobbyist at what turned out to be a total of $15 million.

The stark reality is that hard-pressed taxpayers are still paying for a costly project that should not have been brought to life in the first place.

Now the enduring scandal of WGTL would be remembered among Trinidad and Tobago’s worst and most expensive public fiascos.